Which University did the National Merit finalists go to

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A ranking of schools that don't specifically give scholarships to NMF students, particularly per capita, might be meaningful. When listed with schools that are giving scholarships, it isn't very meaningful.

+ 1 Took the words right out of my mouth! For instance, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Northeastern do; UVA, Michigan, ND do not.

Pretty sure all these schools offer some form of very competitive academic scholarships for extraordinary students. And none of them are based on a PSAT score. You are spreading nonsense for whatever reason.

The national merit finalist distinction is not the cause of a scholarship at schools such as Vanderbilt, Emory, Michigan, UVA or Notre Dame. It might be one part of the entire application, but scholarships are awarded for a lot more than that. Whereas some schools like Alabama, UT-Dallas, Tulsa are gunning specifically for students with that award and awarding scholarships accordingly. And I say, great. Good for them.

If national merit finalists are reflective of the academic quality of a college's students, then the only measure that matters is the percentage of students with that distinction. So looking at the list, that would be MIT, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Stanford, USC, Yale, Princeton, Rice, Duke, Emory, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Florida, and UT-Dallas, which are the only schools that have more than 4 percent of students with that distinction.

Have you found a list that shows how many finalists?

I think there are three categories here.

1) Schools like Oklahoma and UTD that offer major scholarships linked to National Merit Finalist status. At these schools, every finalist becomes a scholar, so the listed number of scholars is the same as the number of finalists. Also, at these schools there may be a gap with a fairly high number of finalists, and then few kids who came close to but didn't quite make it.

2) Schools like Vanderbilt that offer a small scholarship. While this scholarship probably isn't the reason why NMF's choose the school, it does mean that every Finalist becomes a scholar. At these schools the NMS students are probably more representative of the larger population.

3) Schools like MIT that don't offer any scholarship. At these schools the number of NMF's may be much higher than what is reported on that list, because there will be plenty of kids who didn't get a corporate or other scholarship.

There are no small scholarships at schools like Vanderbilt, Duke, Rice, Chicago, Northwestern. You either get a very difficult to get scholarship for the full ride, or you don't. What a lot of students get is financial aid.

Vanderbilt gives $2K to $6K to every NMF who is accepted and chooses them. This scholarship is specifically for NMF and receiving it makes one a NMS. That is different from most or all the schools on your list.

For schools charging nearly $100,000 per year, I'm pretty sure 2-6K doesn't make much of a difference. And from quickly glancing at the Vanderbilt website, that seems to be in addition to already winning a merit scholarship. A little bonus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UofFlorida offers an awesome deal for NSMF. It is probably the best bang for the buck in all of education.

What does UF offer for finalists?

[Anonymous]

UVA.

For those going places like Harvard, do you feel like the cache has been tarnished?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does Alabama has honors college dorms so I bet the honors students are spending a significant amount of time together.

Yes, they have Honors dorms. But there are a lot of Honors kids. The really smart kids really find each other in the programs - Blount, Randall and one other. These are amazing and provide incredible opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A ranking of schools that don't specifically give scholarships to NMF students, particularly per capita, might be meaningful. When listed with schools that are giving scholarships, it isn't very meaningful.

+ 1 Took the words right out of my mouth! For instance, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Northeastern do; UVA, Michigan, ND do not.

Pretty sure all these schools offer some form of very competitive academic scholarships for extraordinary students. And none of them are based on a PSAT score. You are spreading nonsense for whatever reason.

The national merit finalist distinction is not the cause of a scholarship at schools such as Vanderbilt, Emory, Michigan, UVA or Notre Dame. It might be one part of the entire application, but scholarships are awarded for a lot more than that. Whereas some schools like Alabama, UT-Dallas, Tulsa are gunning specifically for students with that award and awarding scholarships accordingly. And I say, great. Good for them.

If national merit finalists are reflective of the academic quality of a college's students, then the only measure that matters is the percentage of students with that distinction. So looking at the list, that would be MIT, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Stanford, USC, Yale, Princeton, Rice, Duke, Emory, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Florida, and UT-Dallas, which are the only schools that have more than 4 percent of students with that distinction.

Have you found a list that shows how many finalists?

I think there are three categories here.

1) Schools like Oklahoma and UTD that offer major scholarships linked to National Merit Finalist status. At these schools, every finalist becomes a scholar, so the listed number of scholars is the same as the number of finalists. Also, at these schools there may be a gap with a fairly high number of finalists, and then few kids who came close to but didn't quite make it.

2) Schools like Vanderbilt that offer a small scholarship. While this scholarship probably isn't the reason why NMF's choose the school, it does mean that every Finalist becomes a scholar. At these schools the NMS students are probably more representative of the larger population.

3) Schools like MIT that don't offer any scholarship. At these schools the number of NMF's may be much higher than what is reported on that list, because there will be plenty of kids who didn't get a corporate or other scholarship.

There are no small scholarships at schools like Vanderbilt, Duke, Rice, Chicago, Northwestern. You either get a very difficult to get scholarship for the full ride, or you don't. What a lot of students get is financial aid.

Vanderbilt gives $2K to $6K to every NMF who is accepted and chooses them. This scholarship is specifically for NMF and receiving it makes one a NMS. That is different from most or all the schools on your list.

For schools charging nearly $100,000 per year, I'm pretty sure 2-6K doesn't make much of a difference. And from quickly glancing at the Vanderbilt website, that seems to be in addition to already winning a merit scholarship. A little bonus.

Yes, I agree. I was responding to someone who said that Vanderbilt doesn’t give small scholarships.

It says that if you are receiving another scholarship the NMS will add $2K. If the NM scholarship can be up to $6K.

The point is that while this scholarship is indeed small relative to tuition, it means that every finalist at Vanderbilt becomes a scholar. So the percent on the list above includes all the NMF’s at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does Alabama has honors college dorms so I bet the honors students are spending a significant amount of time together.

Yes, they have Honors dorms. But there are a lot of Honors kids. The really smart kids really find each other in the programs - Blount, Randall and one other. These are amazing and provide incredible opportunities.

Witt is the other honors cohort at Alabama. My kid is a NMF and chose Alabama and is in the Blount Scholars program.

[Anonymous]

My NMF kid chose Pitt. Biomedical research was truly on par with other higher ranked schools, and got a massive scholarship. Couldn't be happier!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A ranking of schools that don't specifically give scholarships to NMF students, particularly per capita, might be meaningful. When listed with schools that are giving scholarships, it isn't very meaningful.

+ 1 Took the words right out of my mouth! For instance, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Northeastern do; UVA, Michigan, ND do not.

Pretty sure all these schools offer some form of very competitive academic scholarships for extraordinary students. And none of them are based on a PSAT score. You are spreading nonsense for whatever reason.

The national merit finalist distinction is not the cause of a scholarship at schools such as Vanderbilt, Emory, Michigan, UVA or Notre Dame. It might be one part of the entire application, but scholarships are awarded for a lot more than that. Whereas some schools like Alabama, UT-Dallas, Tulsa are gunning specifically for students with that award and awarding scholarships accordingly. And I say, great. Good for them.

If national merit finalists are reflective of the academic quality of a college's students, then the only measure that matters is the percentage of students with that distinction. So looking at the list, that would be MIT, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Stanford, USC, Yale, Princeton, Rice, Duke, Emory, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Florida, and UT-Dallas, which are the only schools that have more than 4 percent of students with that distinction.

Have you found a list that shows how many finalists?

Something like 90% of finalists become scholars.

Scholars by school starts on p38 of their annual report.

https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/annual_report.pdf?gid=2&pgid=61&sessionid=b24b35da-0cb1-4748-9664-c5d933f196fa&cc=1

No, it’s more like 60%. And skewed toward students attending schools that participate. Only 17% of NMFs make it to Scholar outside of that. My kid’s school doesn’t participate so he’s out of luck.

[Anonymous]

Our school has two and they picked flagship, one turned down Princeton for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UofFlorida offers an awesome deal for NSMF. It is probably the best bang for the buck in all of education.

I don’t believe they offer it to out of state kids anymore. It was called the Benaquisto and beginning in 22-23 is not offered to out of state students anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UMD. CS dept

Oh, mine too. And UMD gives 8K scholarship over 4 years to these kids. Much more than what the NMSC offers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Alabama 323 [8,279 Freshmen, 3.9%]
2. Florida 297 [6,612 Freshmen 4.4%]
3. USC 262 [3,402 Freshmen, 7.7%]
4. Purdue 260 [9,353 Freshmen, 2.7%]
5. UT Dallas 232 [4,218 Freshmen, 5.5%]
6. Texas A&M 219 [12,419 Freshmen, 1.7%]
7. Vanderbilt 185 [1,624 Freshmen, 11.3%]
8. Harvard 160 [1,644 Freshmen, 9.7%]
9. MIT 154 [1,136 Freshmen, 13.5%]
10. Penn 147 [2,415 Freshmen, 6%]
11. UMD 144 [5,821 Freshmen, 2.5%]
12. Stanford 129 [1,733 Freshmen, 7.4%]
13. Yale 127 [1,554 Freshmen, 8%]
14. Princeton 116 [1,497 Freshmen, 7.7%]
15. Northeastern 97 [2,519 Freshmen, 3.9%]
16. Duke 94 [1,744 Freshmen, 5.3%]
17. UC Berkeley 93 [6,707 Freshmen, 1.4%]
18. Georgia Tech 90 [3,646 Freshmen, 2.5%]
19. UCF 85 [7,512 Freshmen, 1.1%]
20. UT Austin 85 [9,109 Freshmen, .9%]
21. Oklahoma 84
22. Minnesota 79
23. BU 77 [3,635 Freshmen, 2.1%]
24. UCLA 77 [6,461 Freshmen, 1.2%]
25. USF 77 [6,773 Freshmen, 1.1%]
26. Michigan 76 [7,050 Freshmen, 1%]
27. Columbia 75 [1,522 Freshmen, 4.9%]
28. Northwestern 75 [2,038 Freshmen, 3.7%]
29. Brown 69 [1,717 Freshmen, 4%]
30. Emory 67 [1,424 Freshmen, 4.7%]
31. Indiana 67 [9,736 Freshmen, .7%]
32. Arizona 65 [9,069 Freshmen, .7%]
33. Tufts 63 [1,694 Freshmen, 3.7%]
34. ASU 62 [10,022 Freshmen, .6%]
35. Georgia 60 [6,250 Freshmen, 1%]
36. BYU 59 [5,567 Freshmen, 1%]
37. Georgetown 56 [1,603 Freshmen, 3.5%]
38. Case Western 55 [1,553 Freshmen, 3.5%]
39. Cornell 54 [3,491 Freshmen, 1.5%]
40. Rice 51 [1,201 Freshmen, 4.3%]
41. Dartmouth 49 [1,124 Freshmen, 4.4%]
42. Michigan State 49 [9,829 Freshmen .5%]
43. Johns Hopkins 48 [1,406 Freshmen 3.4%]
44. UChicago 48 [2,053 Freshmen, 2.3%]
45. Carnegie Mellon 47 [1,716 Freshmen, 2.7%]
46. Clemson 45 [4,588 Freshmen, .99%]
47. Missouri 45 [4,983 Freshmen, .9%]
48. NYU 44 [6,184 Freshmen, .7%]
49. Miss State 43 [3,367 Freshmen, 1.2%]
50. Rutgers 43 [7,780 Freshmen, .5%]
51. UNC 40 [4,689 Freshmen, .8%]
52. Illinois 39 [8,297 Freshmen, .5%]
53. Oklahoma State 36 [4,643 Freshmen, .7%]
54. Iowa State 35
55. UVA 35 [4,020 Freshmen, .9%]

So much for only finding “intellectual equals” at expensive, selective privates.

Yes and no. Important to remember how the process works. In a nutshell, kids take the PSAT, get high scores -> in pool. -> Combination of confirming score on the SAT, GPA, & paperwork -> NMSF. Kids who then get scholarships become NMF. Scholarships can come from many different sources. But some schools automatically give scholarships to every NMSF that attends (Alabama, Florida, USC...) and some schools do not; children with scholarships at e.g. Harvard have been selected more randomly. To better see the population of elite students, you want to see the NMSF numbers, and those aren't available, just the ones for NMF. Thus the better option would be to scale up places where NMF isn't automatic by multiplying by ~3x (*), so the true number of intellectual powerhouses at Harvard is more likely 480+.

Situation is slightly more complicated because the cut-offs for NMSF are by state or territory; it takes a noticeably higher cut-off to become NMSF in Virginia vs Missouri. Further, states where the ACT is popular have misleadingly low numbers at their universities; there are ultra-high performing kids in Tennessee who wind up not taking the SAT (or at least not studying particularly hard for it), because they're in an ACT-centric universe. Granted, these ultra-high-performing Tennesseeans are much, much more likely to take the SAT than Joe Average, but there still are kids who are missed, and therefore you can probably factor up somewhat the numbers in universities of particular appeal to students from non-SAT states.

(*) I sat down to calculate this a while ago and don't remember my results, so this is handwavey. Number's probably a bit higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UofFlorida offers an awesome deal for NSMF. It is probably the best bang for the buck in all of education.

I don’t believe they offer it to out of state kids anymore. It was called the Benaquisto and beginning in 22-23 is not offered to out of state students anymore.

You are correct.

[Anonymous]

UT Dallas.

Offers full tuition, room and board, study abroad, stipend and internship placements. Especially for the tippy top CS students who are NMF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Alabama 323 [8,279 Freshmen, 3.9%]
2. Florida 297 [6,612 Freshmen 4.4%]
3. USC 262 [3,402 Freshmen, 7.7%]
4. Purdue 260 [9,353 Freshmen, 2.7%]
5. UT Dallas 232 [4,218 Freshmen, 5.5%]
6. Texas A&M 219 [12,419 Freshmen, 1.7%]
7. Vanderbilt 185 [1,624 Freshmen, 11.3%]
8. Harvard 160 [1,644 Freshmen, 9.7%]
9. MIT 154 [1,136 Freshmen, 13.5%]
10. Penn 147 [2,415 Freshmen, 6%]
11. UMD 144 [5,821 Freshmen, 2.5%]
12. Stanford 129 [1,733 Freshmen, 7.4%]
13. Yale 127 [1,554 Freshmen, 8%]
14. Princeton 116 [1,497 Freshmen, 7.7%]
15. Northeastern 97 [2,519 Freshmen, 3.9%]
16. Duke 94 [1,744 Freshmen, 5.3%]
17. UC Berkeley 93 [6,707 Freshmen, 1.4%]
18. Georgia Tech 90 [3,646 Freshmen, 2.5%]
19. UCF 85 [7,512 Freshmen, 1.1%]
20. UT Austin 85 [9,109 Freshmen, .9%]
21. Oklahoma 84
22. Minnesota 79
23. BU 77 [3,635 Freshmen, 2.1%]
24. UCLA 77 [6,461 Freshmen, 1.2%]
25. USF 77 [6,773 Freshmen, 1.1%]
26. Michigan 76 [7,050 Freshmen, 1%]
27. Columbia 75 [1,522 Freshmen, 4.9%]
28. Northwestern 75 [2,038 Freshmen, 3.7%]
29. Brown 69 [1,717 Freshmen, 4%]
30. Emory 67 [1,424 Freshmen, 4.7%]
31. Indiana 67 [9,736 Freshmen, .7%]
32. Arizona 65 [9,069 Freshmen, .7%]
33. Tufts 63 [1,694 Freshmen, 3.7%]
34. ASU 62 [10,022 Freshmen, .6%]
35. Georgia 60 [6,250 Freshmen, 1%]
36. BYU 59 [5,567 Freshmen, 1%]
37. Georgetown 56 [1,603 Freshmen, 3.5%]
38. Case Western 55 [1,553 Freshmen, 3.5%]
39. Cornell 54 [3,491 Freshmen, 1.5%]
40. Rice 51 [1,201 Freshmen, 4.3%]
41. Dartmouth 49 [1,124 Freshmen, 4.4%]
42. Michigan State 49 [9,829 Freshmen .5%]
43. Johns Hopkins 48 [1,406 Freshmen 3.4%]
44. UChicago 48 [2,053 Freshmen, 2.3%]
45. Carnegie Mellon 47 [1,716 Freshmen, 2.7%]
46. Clemson 45 [4,588 Freshmen, .99%]
47. Missouri 45 [4,983 Freshmen, .9%]
48. NYU 44 [6,184 Freshmen, .7%]
49. Miss State 43 [3,367 Freshmen, 1.2%]
50. Rutgers 43 [7,780 Freshmen, .5%]
51. UNC 40 [4,689 Freshmen, .8%]
52. Illinois 39 [8,297 Freshmen, .5%]
53. Oklahoma State 36 [4,643 Freshmen, .7%]
54. Iowa State 35
55. UVA 35 [4,020 Freshmen, .9%]

So much for only finding “intellectual equals” at expensive, selective privates.

Yes and no. Important to remember how the process works. In a nutshell, kids take the PSAT, get high scores -> in pool. -> Combination of confirming score on the SAT, GPA, & paperwork -> NMSF. Kids who then get scholarships become NMF. Scholarships can come from many different sources. But some schools automatically give scholarships to every NMSF that attends (Alabama, Florida, USC...) and some schools do not; children with scholarships at e.g. Harvard have been selected more randomly. To better see the population of elite students, you want to see the NMSF numbers, and those aren't available, just the ones for NMF. Thus the better option would be to scale up places where NMF isn't automatic by multiplying by ~3x (*), so the true number of intellectual powerhouses at Harvard is more likely 480+.

Situation is slightly more complicated because the cut-offs for NMSF are by state or territory; it takes a noticeably higher cut-off to become NMSF in Virginia vs Missouri. Further, states where the ACT is popular have misleadingly low numbers at their universities; there are ultra-high performing kids in Tennessee who wind up not taking the SAT (or at least not studying particularly hard for it), because they're in an ACT-centric universe. Granted, these ultra-high-performing Tennesseeans are much, much more likely to take the SAT than Joe Average, but there still are kids who are missed, and therefore you can probably factor up somewhat the numbers in universities of particular appeal to students from non-SAT states.

(*) I sat down to calculate this a while ago and don't remember my results, so this is handwavey. Number's probably a bit higher.

You’re confusing NMF with NMS.

Most NM semifinalists do become NM finalists.
However not all Finalists become Scholars. To become a scholar you need 1 of 3 scholarship offers:

The National Merit Corp scholars hi $2500

National Merit Corp partner scholarships - amount varies and is usually for children or other affiliates of corporations funding the scholarships

University scholarships with amounts ranging from small to full rides